I am putting together some narrow pallet beds for strawberries. I need to stake them so they don’t tip over. The “sleekest” way I have come up with is rebar hammered into the ground on the inside corners. These are only about 8” wide and I will have plant roots directly in contact with the rebar and not much extra soil in general. Does anyone know how much zinc galvanized steel leeches into soil? I’m a bit concerned because of the size of the beds. My other option is to put it on the exterior and lash to them…not as sleek and myself or a kid is sure to get scratched.
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It depends on soil acidity. But! Most plants need some zinc and most soil is deficient. You might be doing the plants a favor by making some zinc available.
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Interesting, thank you.
That’s a new one for me, I have never before seen galvanized rebar, only the plain steel that rusts relatively quickly. Pray tell more about the provenance.
It sounds like the pallet will be on its edge, holding the soil in. I don’t have direct experience using a wooden pallet as a bed edge but I have used wooden pallets as temporary composters, standing four of them up and attaching at the corners to hold leaves that were mown into little bits and then raked, and to hold wood chips until they aged somewhat. In both cases I was unpleasantly surprised as how quickly the wood degraded. Towards the bottom they were falling apart at the one year mark. In contrast, I’ve used plastic pallets for years to create composters and they show none of that issue.
Omg you’re right. My overtired brain keeps misfiring. Totally not galvanized.
The pallets, I cut, manipulated, burned, linseed oiled, and screwed back together. You can definitely argue that I should have charred them more. Made 3. Hoping that gets me a few years out of them five years would be great. Two have crappy wood one is much stronger. Here’s two of them. The one on the right doesn’t need bracing.
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I’m glad to hear that. I don’t know whether tung oil or boiled linseed oil will be more effective at protecting the wood under those conditions but that should help it to last significantly longer.
The one on the left is definitely quicker to produce. If you were to drive a rebar stake in the middle of the outside on each end I wonder if one or two electrical wire staples near the top would be long enough to securely hold.
Those look great!!! Boiled linseed is what they used to use on external wood windows so I bet it helps….
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Thank you so much for the suggestion! I’m so overboard right now in life that didn’t occur to me. Thank you.
The one on the right was only slightly more work. It was an atypical pallet. The long sides were made cutting it in half and cutting the excess away from the 4x4 ish pieces and the excess made the short side. This is the first woodworking I’ve done since a kid and really not my interest or strong suit, so was going for as simplistic as possible!
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